The present invention relates to a process for preparing a meat product from an animal carcass. In particular, the present invention relates to a method for cutting and boning a turkey to produce turkey rib cuts.
In recent years, individuals have become increasingly health conscious. As links between eating red meat and various diseases (including heart disease and cancer) have been uncovered, turkey meat has gained popularity as a red meat substitute. Today, turkey burgers and a large selection turkey-based cold cuts are commercially available. As individuals become more health conscious, the demand for other turkey meat products will certainly increase.
Turkey carcasses are typically butchered into several main cuts or sections including breast, wing, thigh, leg and scapula meat sections. The scapula bone refers to either of a pair bones lying one in each dorsal lateral part of the thorax, being the principal bone of the corresponding half of the shoulder girdle, and articulating with the corresponding clavicle or coracoid. Typically, the turkey scapula bone and its associated muscles (meat) are not sold as a separate cut of turkey meat, but are sold as scrap meat with the remaining turkey carcass after the main cuts are removed. The remaining meat that adheres to the scapula bone is usually ground and extruded to be sold for non-human consumption as mechanically deboned meat (at a price considerably less than the main cuts).
Conventional scapula meat salvage techniques are inefficient (producing minimal yields of meat), difficult to implement, and time and labor intensive. The scapula meat is difficult to remove from the turkey carcass with automated equipment. A current method of salvaging some meat attached to the scapula bone produces minimal yields and involves extensive time and labor by the butcher. The butcher must remove the scapula bone from the turkey carcass and manually trim the meat that adheres to the scapula bone. This technique requires extensive trimwork to yield an amount of meat that pales in comparison to the main cuts. Due to the difficulty of the trimwork, current trimming techniques yield only approximately 50% of the meat attached to the scapula bone. Many turkey butchers do not even attempt to salvage the meat attached to the scapula bone due to the large investment of time and labor required to salvage the meat attached to the scapula bone. Instead, the scapula bone and its attached meat remain with the turkey carcass after the main cuts have been removed, and are treated as scrap meat that will be ground and extruded to be sold as mechanically deboned meat. Consequently, conventional scapula meat salvage techniques do not provide a substantial amount of meat and are difficult to implement.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method of using the scapula meat to increase the potential "per pound" profit of a whole turkey carcass, while also developing new types of turkey products to attract additional consumers. The present invention fulfills such needs by providing a method for cutting and boning a whole turkey carcass to create a turkey rib cut which includes the scapula bone and its associated muscles (meat). The turkey rib cut has sufficient perceived value to be marketed as a separate turkey product.